Italy Journalist Says Gave U.S. Iraq-Niger Papers

[Kellanved]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030719/ts_nm/iraq_italy_uranium_dc&cid=564&ncid=1473

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian journalist said in an interview published Saturday she gave documents on Iraq (news - web sites) seeking uranium from Niger to the U.S. embassy in Rome in 2002 to try to find out if the information was credible.


The documents have become central to a charged debate over whether President Bush (news - web sites) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), knowingly or not, made exaggerated claims over Iraq's nuclear weapons program to justify going to war.


A senior State Department official said Thursday the United States had acquired the documents from "a private source, non-governmental," in Rome.

...

[Mountainman]

1. checks in Niger failed to satisfy her that the documents w

"She said after checks in Niger failed to satisfy her that the documents were reliable, Panorama decided not to publish the story."


Here is a journalist, who could tell by looking at these documents that they weren't real, but the government of the United States used them for a basis to make a preemptive strike on a weaker nation.

Either we have a bunch of incompetents running our country or a bunch of liars. I think both.

[kentuck]

2. And who did she get them from??

"...after acquiring them from a source she could not name but who was not linked to Italian secret services."
=======================================
Who gave them to her? Rummy?

[leftchick]

3. my thoughts too,

Where did she get them?!? She better get herself some protection fast..

[NashVegas]

15. Rummy's Office of Strategic Influence

And then there was the office of strategic influence. You may recall that. And "oh my goodness gracious isn't that terrible, Henny Penny the sky is going to fall." I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing fine I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/11/dod111802.html

From FAIR:

Behind the Pentagon’s Propaganda Plan

By Rachel Coen

On February 19, the New York Times reported that a new group within the Pentagon, the Office of Strategic Influence, was “developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations.” The revelation was met with outrage, and within a week the Pentagon had closed down the OSI, saying that negative media attention had damaged the office’s reputation so much “that it could not operate effectively" (AP, 2/26/02).

...


At the time, Rumsfeld claimed that he had “never even seen the charter for the office,” but Thomas Timmes, the OSI’s assistant for operations, said that Rumsfeld had been briefed on its goals “at least twice” and had “given his general support” (New York Times, 2/25/02).



I wonder what Tommy Timmes is up to these days?

[LizW]

4. This is big

The documents didn't meet the standard of a journalist for reliability, but someone (and we will find out who) insisted that Bush* get up before the Congress and the people and say it as justification for war.

The noose is tightening, folks. It's not going to happen overnight, but the truth is going to come out.

I may have missed it, but was the story about the Niger diplomat supposedly forging the documents and selling them to the Italians ever debunked? Is it still hanging out there, maybe true, maybe not?

Regardless, this journalist says she didn't get the documents from an Italian government source, but from someone else. Is it possible that someone who wanted to make sure the documents got to U.S. officials used her to do so, since it didn't seem as if the Italian intelligence agency was going to share them?

I'm just speculating, here. The one thing I do know is that this thing is going to eventually bust wide open.

[unfrigginreal]

5. Something Fishy About This

If you do a Google on the Italian journalist, Elisabetta Burba, you get all kind of hits about a WSJ article that she wrote. Remember the dancing and cheering Palestinians on 9/11, well guess who penned that article?

I don't know the whole thing could be legit but why would she give it to the American Embassy and not go to her own Government?

Why would a senior State Department official just happen to tell reporters on Thursday that the documents came from "a private source, non-governmental," in Rome?

Maybe I just woke up with my tinfoil hat on this morning but it sure smells like a plant.

[Paschall]

6. She seems to be in all the hotspots

Rwanda, Kosovo, Somalia.

Found this


Sarajevo, September 1996
(Elisabetta Burba) As an international monitor (center) for first political elections in newborn Federation

Her main gig seems to be at Panorama, http://www.panorama.it. A website search for her name yields about 90 articles.

[Kellanved]

7. seems to be the case

http://www.ciriello.com/site/pw/sto/bur.html

[goforit]

8. Hmmmm..........Ya think she may be more than a reporter?

An Intelligence agent of some sort?

Yet she was smart enough not to print the story!
Unlike the WH BOZO brothers!

[unfrigginreal]

9. That pic was a nice find

Seems to me that Journalism may be her beard.

[jamesinca]

13. Maybe she is another Jason Blair

still she turned them over to check the credibility of them before she reported on them. That has to say something about her credibility. Maybe that is why she is given all of those choice international assignments. I think if she just ran the story without checking the accuracy of them she would be working for FOX, fair and balanced, not a foreign media source.

[scipan]

10. October 2002?

She handed the papers over to the American embassy in October 2002?

Wilson went to Niger in March/April 2002.

Either she isn't telling the truth, or the CIA sent Wilson to check out some other intelligence.

[priller]

11. No, Wilson's trip had nothing to do with the documents

Remember, Wilson said he had never heard about any documents. Apparently this story was out there, that Saddam was trying to obtain yellowcake from Niger, and Wilson (and earlier a 4-star general) had gone to Niger if it was true, or even probable. The documents, which now appear to have come later, seem to me to be a crude forgery by someone trying to get into the good graces of Rummy, Wolfie, et al, by telling them what they wanted to hear, much like Chalabi and his merry band of informers.

[ze_dscherman]

12. SCNR

[Kellanved]

14. Important fact: Panorama is owned by Berlusconi

Postman pointed this out in GD.
http://www.cjr.org/year/95/2/berlusconi.asp